Another guard had returned without him. Peter didn’t wait to begin peppering the man with questions.
“Where’s the other guy?” he asked as he tried to maintain the façade that the two of them didn’t know each other that well. “Did you let him go? Can I leave now?” His tone of voice reflected his genuine concern. Prisoners feared the unknown and had difficulty coping with uncertainty. Peter was about to learn how a skilled investigator like Lieutenant Robinson used that to his advantage.
“Turn around and stick your arms through this slot,” said the guard, who slapped the flat opening in the cell door with the palm of his hand.
Peter complied without comment, and seconds later he was handcuffed again, but this time with the traditional nickel-finish, chain-link style. His anxiety levels shot up as he was led down the hallway into the outer offices of the police substation. There was more activity than earlier when he had been brought in. A map of Homestead, which included the roads leading onto the Keys, was hung on one wall. A whiteboard containing the names and titles of Monroe County’s highest-ranking government officials filled another wall.
“This way,” said a heavyset man who suddenly emerged from an office next to the whiteboard. He never made contact with Peter, instead addressing the guard who escorted him until this point.
Peter was led into a room with a single folding table and two uncomfortable side chairs. He doubted, under ordinary circumstances, that the Miami-Dade police would have a reason to interrogate prisoners. This appeared to have been thrown together for his benefit.
“Take a seat, sir. I’m Lieutenant Virgil Robinson with the Army National Guard’s Military Police. I’d like to come to an agreement with you on something from the beginning. Would that be okay?”
“Yes, sir,” said Peter. Humble and polite.
“If you’ll be honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. Fair enough?”
“Yes, it is,” Peter replied, using a different response so as not to appear disrespectful or robotic. He was tapping on what he’d learned in press briefings during his career as a reporter in Washington. Seasoned journalists, liked police investigators, could see through someone being disingenuous.
Robinson nodded and put on his reading glasses, which he’d retrieved from the shirt pocket of his fatigues. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Straight up. You need to know what I can and cannot do.”
Peter sat up in his chair and nodded. He listened intently as the man laid out the harsh realities of the president’s declaration of martial law. Peter absorbed every word before coming to a harsh conclusion. He and Jimmy were screwed.
“Sir, you asked for honesty, so here it is. I’m from Washington. My name, as I told the guards, is Peter Albright. I’m a reporter for the Washington Times, and I’ve almost died four times trying to get home to my family. It’s as simple as that.”
Robinson thumbed through papers attached to a file folder with black binder clips. He scowled as he slowly appeared to read every word twice and backwards. Peter nervously sat there, forcing himself not to get chatty.
“What’s your connection to the other man? Jimmy, right?”
Peter was at a crossroads. He had to decide whether Jimmy had held up during the interrogation. His friend had never experienced the kind of pressure that a military investigator was capable of bringing upon him. It would’ve been easy for Jimmy to slip up and make a mistake during the hours of questioning he must’ve endured.
Yet where was he? If he held his tongue, wouldn’t he have been returned to his cell? Maybe he’d told the truth, and they’d determined he was a minor player in this whole scheme and let him go? Or maybe he didn’t break and they’d secured him elsewhere to trick Peter.
He inwardly chastised himself for not thinking about this scenario before he was brought in to be interrogated. He’d paused for too long, and Robinson noticed his delay.
“Young man, this is not a difficult question.”
Peter feigned a cough as if he was clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, sir. I haven’t slept in a few days, and I almost died earlier today. My head’s not a hundred percent clear.” But, then, you probably banked on that, didn’t you?
“Do you know this Jimmy person or not?” asked the lieutenant.
Peter stifled a smile. He’d never mentioned Jimmy’s last name. He held firm.
“I was running across the bridge like a dozen others. I’d hurt myself, and Jimmy stopped to help me. When the bridge blew up, he fell over the edge but held on to some rebar. Because he helped me, I helped him.”
Robinson continued to pause between each exchange of questions and answers. He tapped the back of the file folder. “When you were running toward the bridge, what did he say to you?”
Peter furrowed his brow. His interrogator was searching. “About what?”
“Anything. Did he tell you to hurry because the bridge was about to blow up, for example?”
“Um, no. Not that I can recall. It was pretty chaotic with all the people rushing toward Key Largo.”
“What about after you helped him?”
“No, not really. He thanked me, and we just kinda lay on the road, catching our breath. It wasn’t easy.”
“You knew he worked for the Monroe County Sheriff’s department, right?”
“No. Well, I mean, not until I saw his shirt. It wasn’t long after I pulled him up that people were running toward us with the National Guardsmen.”
“Hmmm,” muttered Robinson.
He abruptly stood from his chair and walked out of the room. Peter never saw him again.
CHAPTER TEN
Wednesday, November 6
Monroe County Administration Offices
Key West
Mayor Lindsey Free snuck out of the rear entrance of the Monroe County Administration offices without saying a word to her staff. She didn’t want them to see the harried look on her face. Lindsey, who’d quit smoking years ago, found that the apocalypse was as good an excuse as any to light up again.
She took a long drag on the Marlboro Menthol cigarette, allowing the cool sensation to block the otherwise harsh irritation she felt in her throat when she smoked regular cigarettes. She walked briskly through the parking lot reserved for county vehicles until she emerged under the tree canopy behind the Bad Boy Burritos location on Catherine Street. The restaurant was closed, and the revelers who usually filled every street of the downtown area at that time of night were no longer in town.
Lindsey had effectively orchestrated the eviction of all nonresidents as well as quite a few vagrants from the Keys. She knew she faced difficult challenges ahead to protect, feed and care for her permanent residents. Days prior, after a heated screaming match between Lindsey and the president’s chief of staff, she’d made up her mind to ready the Keys for the possibility of a federal government takeover.
Her decision to remove people from the Keys was a humane one in her mind. She had no intention of feeding them, as her constituents had to come first. By moving them out quickly, she gave them a better opportunity to get to their homes before society collapsed further.
Instituting a blockade of the two bridges leading onto the Keys was a difficult one but necessary. It made no sense to reduce the island chain’s population to legal residents, only to leave the bridges open for them to return at some point.
To be sure, as many members of her staff had pointed out, the destruction of the bridges was a drastic measure, and it would be costly to rebuild. Privately, the county attorney told her it was likely criminal. To give her cover, he drafted an executive order that mirrored the one issued by the president. It also added language that allowed her to close off the county to outsiders because they might be a public health risk.